Thunder

Thunder the eagle came to visit us today! She is a 20 year old Bald Eagle that has been in captivity for 19 years due to the fact that she was shot when she was a year old. The visit was part of the reward that the students earned for the summer reading challenge, but how great is it that she was here during the beginning of our animal research?! 

New Popcorn Words

one   
two  
you  
red  
blue  
cat  
dog  
to  
fun  
it 

Book It!

We are going to start our Book It! reading challenge on October 1st. I have gone to bookitprogram.com and registered our class. I will be tracking the number of minutes your child reads each night and while we're in class on our minute tracker. I have set our goal to 2,000 minutes a month per child. That is 20 minutes a night for 5 nights a week. I will be sending home reading logs beginning next week for you to write the name of the book your child has read and how long they read it. It is a great idea for them to read the books more than once and talk about what is happening throughout the story to check for comprehension. Feel free to write any comments on the books you share!


P.S. we need read aloud volunteers! Sign up at http://www.volunteerspot.com/login/entry/12329980400104

Learning Through Exploration

We are beginning project based learning in my classroom. Project based learning happens when "the students decide what projects they want to tackle, and teachers guide them to resources, on the Internet and in books, that help them create something from what they learn. Whether they're building an airplane or a cruise ship, or conducting a funeral for the class praying mantis, AEEC students are learning more than basic facts and skills.They are acquiring a taste for the process of lifelong learning. " Please check out the rest of that article on http://www.edutopia.org/beginning-journey! It's a great explanation of what PBL is all about.
Sometimes I wish you all could be flies on the wall while your children are really, deeply engaged in what they're learning. It is an amazing thing to see! You'd be surpirsed at how their brains work when they are learning something that they are interested in. Last week I started the animal lesson with one of the groups ("teams") in my class. That group decided that they would like to visit Hovatter's Zoo to learn more about some of the animals we will be researching. We used their want to go to the zoo as a letter writing lesson, and they wrote a letter to Mrs. Hartshorn to ask if we could go. We should have an answer this week!
Encourage your children to find answers to things they want to know about. Children, and adults alike, become more excited about learning and learn more when they want to learn. Whenever they have a question about something try not to just give them the answer. Encourage them to find the answer. Provide books and help them on the internet, but make sure that they are actively involved in the learning process.

The Crayon Box That Talked

Today we continued to talk about what makes us unique. I read The Crayon Box That Talked and we talked about how the crayons in the book were like the members in our class. Each color is unique, but each color is needed. In our classroom, we work as a team-we are a family. Each of us brings something different in to our room. I drew a picture on the smart board of a house, tree, clouds, and the sun, but I only used a blue "marker." I told the class that I am the blue in our class, but showed them that you can't draw an accurate picture with only a blue marker. We decided that green would represent the boys in our room and I colored over my blue grass green and made the leaves on the trees green too. The girls in our class were represented by red and I colored the flowers in our picture red. Each group of people-girls, boys, classroom helpers, leader of the day, and aide- were represented by a color. The students were able to see that each color was very important in the picture, much like each person is very important in our class. 

We have been in school for 15 days and I have already seen a huge difference in your children. Research has shown that it takes, at least, 6 weeks for students just to understand the rules and procedures of each classroom. Yes, we still have some work to do, but we are improving! Most of the students un-packed their backpack and brought notes and homework to my desk this morning completely on their own- that in itself is a huge improvement. Talk to your children about working as a team in the classroom and encouraging their teammates to try their hardest. 

I am slowly moving into student directed learning and want my students to have a sense of ownership in their classroom with what they learn and how they and their teammates are acting. I like the idea of having the students deal with small problems (she touched me) with other students on their own. I have been working with them to learn our debug system. In the debug system the students talk out problems between themselves, it takes away the whole he said/ she said issue. We will be discussing peer mediation a little later in the year, as well. 

Reminder, please send your child's puzzle piece back to school tomorrow. Decorate the side that has the picture on it. 

Popcorn Words

I added some new words to our word wall last week. These words are called popcorn words, because they pop up in things we read and write all the time. The first set of words are:
I
a
see
me
be
can
like
the
yes 
no

Practice them with your child as often as possible. We will be adding more soon!

Wow Factory Studio Classes

I promise this won't happen often, but I wanted to take the opportunity to share a link with you that doesn't really have to do with school. I work at the Wow Factory, and one of the girls I work with is an art teacher. She will be teaching studio kids art classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays! https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-WOW-Factory/155842414455550